TRINITY ACRES: Happy Birthday Eleanor and SpringSummerWinterFall

A couple of my awesome boys got this for me when they were out at Menards. I love it!!

This was given to us and the littles had a great time with it. Coloring and building and crushing and building it again. It last a couple full days before it was demolished.

They made us some Valentine's and this was their delivery method. Open the window and throw the Valentines out upon the recipients. Charming.

Kili must have had to make sure they were properly delivered.

I could NOT resist this chocolate ammo for Aragorn. AND it tasted very good!

We went on a very fascinating field trip to a planetarium at a local public high school. It was a great presentation.

It was all about the space station. The woman below gave an interior tour of the space station, it was really fascinating.

In said school we needed to visit the restroom.... What some call "all gender restrooms" we call "family restroom". No offense people, but there are but two genders, ask the doctor who delivered you. Seriously, it's not rocket science.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELEANOR! I cannot believe she is 14 FOURTEEN!!! Apparently Marigold and Kili cannot believe it either (in reality they are probably in awe of so much sugar soon to be had!

I went to pick up our meat from the butcher and loved these signs!!

Heading out for a walk. We literally, in one week's time went from winter to spring to summer to fall and back to winter. At this point it is a nice summer day.

My first child to lose a tooth at age 5. The rest were closer to 7, maybe 6.

Nerf gun war in the living room, where else?

(please note the freshly made cheese curds in the forefront of the picture, super yummy!)

In case you missed him the irresponsible tween is hiding behind the piano bench.

YES!!! We slept with our window open... in FEBRUARY in the north!

We went to an awesome talk on Our Lady of Quito Ecuador and then, of course, had a fencing lesson for the boys.

One practicing air fencing and the other making an attempt at being a chivalrous young man, it's yet a little stiff...

It is rather unusual but I did take a picture of our hosts' bathroom water faucet. Is that not spendid? I loved it!

Busy with school

In the process of trying to get some things organized around here (it doesn't come naturally) Frodo was busy painting... To make it more fun, I guess he wanted Mr. Stick man to keep him company.

Sam has been busy wiring lights and switches to make things a little brighter and allow lazy people not to have to walk too far to turn out a light...

I love these new little canning jar shelves! More to come.

The small pile of firewood for cooking down the sap.

It was so beautiful one week, got up to 70! Awesome in the north in February. We thoroughly enjoyed it. some get snow days we also get warm weather days (any excuse will do to go outside)

Maple syrup season. In the attempt to keep out cats, litter and other things that tend to fly around at our place we stored our sap in these big huge cubes. However, just because life is always interesting, our little "Our Lady Undoer of Knots" wayside picture was blown into the sap boiler by the wind. Seriously. Life is comical.

Planting some seeds that a friend gave us.

More sap stuff

I got all excited by spring weather that we started to get our stuff to plant seedlings. Then I realized it was 10 weeks before our last frost... a bit early to start the seedlings up here.

Marigold pointing out the wonder and beauty of the clouds. Indeed!

Who can resist drying sheets outside when it is 70? Especially in February.

Obviously Kili dressed for the ever changing weather. One winter boot, one rubber boot, one spring jacket and one pair of shorts. Check. Got it.

In the meantime it was 68 degrees the day of the homeschooling ski trip. I was at a loss for what to have them wear. Frodo ended up wearing blue jeans and a short sleeve shirt. Eleanor wore leggings and a skirt!

8 of the children enjoyed the day out for a very reasonable rate (the only way they can go skiing!!)

Watching Taekwondo class after the ski trip. Need I say the karate kids were very tired and sore!!

I love a beautiful sky and sunset.

Although drinks are few and very far between here, we heard it was national margarita day and so whipped up some strawberry ones. Very tasty.

We had our first belt test for the 8 karate kids. 7 of them were in the first group. Sam, Rosie, Eleanor, Merry, Pippin, Bilbo and Poppy. All passed from white to orange belt.

I'd love to take this class, however, soon as they start all the exercises I get winded just watching.

It was an awesome belt testing.

AWESOME JOB everyone! IT was so fun to watch!

Next session included Frodo who is our star karate kid. he's just naturally very good at this. We switched to this new school 2 months ago and he was promptly bumped up to blue deciding belt. He took no time to catch up. He is also in the leadership program and recently decided to join hyper so he can do the flips. I will probably have a heart attack.

He seemed to be instantly a nun chuck speedie gonzalez (see video below)

Sparring, his favorite!

Mr. Bradley can jump so high it's unbelieveable.

Four of the kids were chosen to do a performance of double nun-chucking. Naturally Frodo was right in there. It was so great to watch.

Parents go out to tie on the new belts.

Great job girls!

Awesome job!

We had a great ice storm... beautiful to look at, terrible to drive.

Our local Kwik Trip had a sign up on Ash Wednesday indicating meatless meal specials for the day. Wow. Splendid! (not because I was eating any of it, just that Ash Wednesday was recognized.

Now we are back to winter with snow and cold weather.

Um... I think we will need to work on the meaning of Ash Wednesday... not sticker-on-the-forehead Wednesday which methinks has no meaning whatsover... unless you are under 8 years old. And then the meaning is... uncertain.